Court issues fresh warrant against Abu Salem

A court in the New Delhi on Wednesday, issued a fresh production warrant against underworld don Abu Salem after Mumbai police failed yet again to produce him in a five-year-old extortion case.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjeev Jain directed the Arthur Road jail authorities in Mumbai to produce the extradited gangster before the court on December 19.

The Special Cell of Delhi Police had registered a case of extortion and criminal intimidation against Salem and his alleged associates Ishtiyaq Ahmed and Chander Prakash in 2002.

The trio is accused of making extortion calls to a South Delhi-based businessman, Rajat Nagrath, demanding a ransom of Rs one crore.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court earlier had on October 15 issued a production warrant against Salem for today.

An FIR in the case was registered in Lodhi Colony police station in South Delhi on the complaint of Nagrath.

The other two accused, Ahmed and Prakash are lodged in Bhopal jail while Salem has been kept at Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.

Salem, who was extradited from Portugal in November five, 2005, is also one of the accused in a MCOCA case registered in 2002 for allegedly attempting to extort Rs 5 crore from a contractor Ashok Gupta here.

A separate court, trying the MCOCA case here, had also issued a production warrant against him for December 15.

Salem had on October 12 attended the funeral of his mother Jannatunisha, who died in Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh, after being granted permission by a court in Mumbai.